Star Pilot: Legend of Galga
Background Communist Mutants from Space played a bit like Galaxian, where Communist Mutants started off in a formation over players’ anti-mutant cannon as eggs. However, it did not take long before the eggs hatched into full-sized Mutants, which flew towards players’ cannons, dropping bombs all the while (along with some eggs never hatching, but charging towards the bottom of the screen as Mutant Bombs). There were several differences as compared to Galaxian though, like a Mother Creature at the top of the screen that would lay more eggs if not destroyed quickly enough, along with there being several playing options from an onscreen menu to choose from, plus up to four players could play as well, both of which were fairly rare for an Atari 2600 game. Star Pilot: Legend of Galga is a hack of Communist Mutants from Space, changing the graphics to the Mother Creature, Mutants, and the flags in between rounds to skulls. Gameplay Each new game starts with several Brood eggs appearing over a player’s(/s’) anti-mutant cannon(s), with the Alien Queen Galga hovering over the formation of eggs. Eggs will turn into Broods, which will charge towards the bottom of the screen while shooting at the player’s cannon. The Queen will continually lay eggs until it is destroyed. As more and more waves of Broods are cleared out, they will move faster, shoot more often, and the Bombs will drop faster as well. Whenever a player’s cannon is hit by a Brood, Bomb, or a shot fired from a Brood, they will lose a cannon and the game will end when there are no more cannons in reserve. Players earn an extra cannon with every other screen, along with earning a bonus for every wave cleared. Players also have many options to choose from via an onscreen menu. Options *Number of players–up to four players can play, alternating turns *Difficulty level–from 1 to 9 (9 being the hardest level) *Shields–protects players from Broods and their fire, but can be used only once per wave per ship (i. e. if a cannon is destroyed during a wave, the player can use the shield again during that wave with the replacement cannon) *Time Warp–slows down everything onscreen for several seconds; can only be used once per wave per ship (see above) *Penetrating Fire–every shot a player fires will penetrate all rows of eggs/the Queen *Guided Fire–players can control their shots after they are fired *Difficulty Switch (A position)–slows anti-mutant cannon speed down Controls Main menu *Select option–joystick up/down *Choose option–joystick right/left or button *Start game–Reset switch In-game *Move cannon–joystick (left/right) *Fire–button *Shields (if applicable)–down on joystick *Time Warp (if applicable)–up on joystick *Steer shot (if applicable)–joystick (left/right) *Back to menu–Game Select switch *Start new game–Game Reset switch Scoring *Queen–500 points *Brood Eggs–10 points *Diving Brood Attackers–60 points *Clearing a screen–100 points Trivia *On the original game's title screen, it would read "Communist Mutants" for a few seconds before changing to the options screen. With the title screen of this hack, it would just read "Star Pilot" and "Legend of Galga" until the player moved the controller. *This was said to be a "work in progress" in 2004Atari Age forums post from the author.. However, no work has been done with it since and it has been stated as to being finishedAtari Age private message from the author.. References Category:Games Category:Atari 2600 BOTSS Category:Hacked BOTSS